


O, Tannenbaum

by KiloAlphaJigsaw



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas Tree, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, pre-Halefire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiloAlphaJigsaw/pseuds/KiloAlphaJigsaw
Summary: Derek hears loud voices as he crosses the muddy gravel in between the shack and the parking area, and expands his hearing in curiosity. “Has anyone seen my son? His name is Stiles, and he’s ten years old, dark brown hair in a buzzcut, and brown eyes. He’s wearing jeans and a blue parka, with a Santa hat and red mittens. Anyone? Has anyone seen him?”Derek barely keeps his internal groan from coming out. Fan-freakin-tastic. Another stupid kid has wandered off from his stupid parents, meaning every employee on the tree farm will have to help search for him. Derek knows he can probably track the kid by scent, but he’s not supposed to use his werewolf powers in front of humans. He bites his lip in indecision. The last time they had to search the tree farm’s forty acres for a lost kid, it had taken them nearly three hours to find her.To heck with it. He’s not going to be late for his date with Kate, not when he can do something to prevent it. It’s not like anyone will guess he’s a werewolf if he finds the kid before anyone else. They’ll just figure he was lucky.





	O, Tannenbaum

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you enjoy this sugar cookie of a fic!
> 
> Usual disclaimer: don't own, don't profit - don't sue!

Derek tightens the last knot tying the Christmas tree to the top of the minivan, and pockets the tip the dad hands him, giving the man a bright smile and a “Thank you! Merry Christmas!” then turns and hurries back to the shack to see if there are any more customers he has to help, or if he’s _finally_ done for the day. He’s got a date, a _real_ date finally, with Kate, and $147 in his pocket from his latest paycheck and today’s tips. They’re going to have to go to Beacon Valley, the next town over, to go to dinner, since they really can’t be seen in public here in town, but it will be the first time they’ve done anything besides talk and kiss a few times in her classroom. Derek’s stomach flutters every time he thinks about tonight. Who knows how far they’ll go – in more ways than one.

He hears loud voices as he crosses the muddy gravel in between the shack and the parking area, and expands his hearing in curiosity. “Has anyone seen my son? His name is Stiles, and he’s ten years old, dark brown hair in a buzzcut, and brown eyes. He’s wearing jeans and a blue parka, with a Santa hat and red mittens. Anyone? Has anyone seen him?”

Derek barely keeps his internal groan from coming out. Fan-freakin-tastic. Another stupid kid has wandered off from his stupid parents, meaning every employee on the farm will have to help search for him. Derek knows he can probably track the kid by scent, but he’s not supposed to use his werewolf powers in front of humans. He bites his lip in indecision. The last time they had to search the tree farm’s forty acres for a lost kid, it had taken them nearly three hours to find her.

To heck with it. He’s not going to be late for his date with Kate, not when he can do something to prevent it. It’s not like anyone will guess he’s a werewolf if he finds the kid before anyone else. They’ll just figure he was lucky.

He walks up to the man and asks, “What section were you in when you last saw him?”

The man turns to him, giving him a quick but thorough up and down glance. “I don’t know,” he says, running a hand through his sandy hair. “All these damn trees look alike to me.” The man looks past Derek and turns around, scanning for his son.

Derek refrains from rolling his eyes, and steps closer to the man to get a whiff of his scent. The kid will smell enough like his father that Derek should be able to track him, even among the hundreds of other human scents on the farm. He puts a hand on the man’s shoulder like he’s trying to comfort him, which gets him close enough to draw in his scent. “Can you tell me approximately what direction the place you last saw him was in?”

The man had turned sharply back to Derek when he felt the touch on his arm, and gives Derek a calmer, less-wild-eyed look, tinged with gratitude. “Yeah,” he says, “that way.” He points off to the north. “I don’t know how far in. We looked at so many damn trees.” He clenches and unclenches his fists.

Derek takes a deep breath, but can’t quite catch the man’s scent. _Time to be weird,_ he thinks. He pulls the man into a hug, taking a deep whiff of his scent, saying, “It’ll be alright, Mister. We’ll find your son. His name is Stiles?” He gives the man’s back a few pats for good measure, then releases the man before things can get even weirder.

The dad looks a little bemused, but strangely, seems calmer. “Yeah, Stiles. Thanks, kid. I appreciate that.” The owner comes over before the man can say anything else, and starts explaining their search policy, and Derek takes the opportunity to slip away.

He has the man’s scent, which should let him find the boy. He heads north into the Douglas firs, following the man’s scent – tinged with fear – back the way he had come.  As soon as he is out of sight of the shack, he breaks into a light jog, nose in the air, following the man’s scent. The guy wasn’t kidding – it wanders all over the place, up and down the rows, until it reaches a point where it’s stronger. The man must have stood in one place for awhile for the scent to have accumulated here. He sniffs around for a similar scent nearby – that would be the boy. He catches a whiff of someth- _oh_ , that’s a nice smell.

He follows his nose to the next row, where the scent is stronger. It smells like a young boy, of course, and a lot like the man, which is also to be expected, but it just smells really _good_ , like cookies baking, or the air before it rains, something unfinished, on-the-way-but-not-here-yet, almost-done-but-not-quite, and Derek wants to bury his nose in it and wait to see what it becomes.

The trail wanders through the grove, sometimes getting thinner, like the boy was hurrying, and sometimes thicker, like he had stopped to ponder a certain tree. Derek hurries after it, the scent so unique and distinct that he doesn’t even notice any other people’s scents. Deeper and deeper the trails leads, into the groves so far from the road that very few customers wander there, leaving the trees larger here than most on the nearer lots.

Derek stretches out his hearing, as he practically runs along, until he can hear a faint voice murmuring in the distance. He puts on a burst of speed, and rounds a large rock outcropping to find a small pair of denim-clad legs sticking out from underneath one of the most beautiful trees Derek has seen. The voice resolves itself into words: “Come one, you stupid saw! Work! Freakin hunk of junk, piece of crap – why don’t you work?”

Derek takes a deep breath – holy crap, that’s a beautiful smell! – and says, “Stiles?”

The boy squawks, and squirms his way out from under the tree, little kid’s not-quite-curses coming from his lips, until he manages to get out far enough that he can flail from his belly onto his back and sit up. He looks at Derek, eyes wide, and mouth open, and says, “Who the heck are _you?_ ”

Derek can’t help but smile a little, the kid is so darn cute. “I’m Derek,” he says. “I work here. Your dad had us all come looking for you when you got lost.”

The kid scoffs with all the contempt a ten-year-old can muster. “I’m not _lost_ ,” he says scornfully. “I know _exactly_ where I am.” He scrambles upright, and for a moment Derek thinks he’s going to overbalance and fall back down again, but he manages to catch himself on the tree. He pulls the farm’s advertising brochure with the schematic map on it out of his coat pocket. “I’m right here,” he says, pointing to the far northeast corner of the map, which is indeed where they are. “And the parking lot is back –” he looks at his watch, and then where the sun is starting to set, then orients himself and points “-there.” Which is also correct.

Derek raises his brows, impressed. “That’s right,” he says. “How’d you know that?”

The kid rolls his eyes. “I’m not stupid, you know. I know things. I know enough not to go wandering off and getting lost. My _dad’s_ the one who does that.”

Derek rolls his eyes right back, and gestures, beckoning. “Whatever. C’mon, let’s go. Your dad is freaking out and we’re about to close, too.”

Stiles looks at him like he’s insane. “Uh, _no_. I’m in the middle of cutting down my Christmas tree!”

Derek takes a deep breath and lets it out, eyes closing as he shakes his head. “ _Fine_. Gimme the saw and I’ll do it.”

Stiles fiddles with the strings on the bottom of his coat. “It’s sort of stuck in the trunk,” he mumbles, and it’s only because of his enhanced hearing that Derek can even hear him.

Derek rolls his eyes and his entire head. “ _Fine,_ ” he repeats, stepping up to the boy, who scurries to get out of his way with a little “meep!”

Derek drops to his belly and army crawls under the tree, where he is nearly overwhelmed by the strong scent of resin and Stiles. He lets himself close his eyes and take a few lungfuls of that almost-ready smell, and startles slightly when the boy says, “Any day now. Farm’s about to close, you know.”

“Smart ass,” Derek mutters, then looks at the situation. The boy had cut about halfway through before the weight of the tree caused the cut to close slightly and bind the saw. “You need to pull the tree towards the rear, away from the saw, to keep the tree’s weight from making it bind,” he says.

“Oh!” Stiles responds, little footsteps scurrying through the leaf litter. The tree shakes as he grabs it, and Derek has to duck his head down to avoid getting debris in his eyes. “Like this?”

Derek grabs the saw and finds that it moves freely now. “Perfect,” he says, continuing the cut Stiles started. “When you feel the tree start to lean that way of its own accord, let go of it and get out of the way. It won’t get damaged if it falls to the ground. Don’t let it fall on you. Your dad will be pih- uh, pee-owed at me if I bring you back full of needles.”

Stiles snorts. “Har dee har har. You should do stand up.”

“Tip your waitress,” Derek murmurs as he makes quick work of finishing the cut. When he feels the tree about to go, he’s just about to yell at Stiles to get out of the way when he hears the boy scurrying away. “Tim-ber!” he shouts, at the same time Stiles does. The tree fwumps to the ground, and Derek lifts himself to his knees, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks, which are gone before he even completes the motion. Stiles has got his fists raised in the air and is jumping up and down.

“Woo hoo!” he shouts, the puts out a hand to Derek to high five. Derek slaps the kid’s hand then grabs it and pretends to use it to pull himself up. Stiles plants his feet and pulls back, like he seriously is trying to help Derek up. Derek grins, and envelops the boy in a hug, sticking his nose in the Stiles’ head to take a deep sniff of him. Maaaannn, that’s a good smell!

“Get off me, you weirdo,” the kid says, grinning and shoving at Derek good-naturedly. Derek tries to ruffle Stiles’ hair, but “Hah! Thwarted by my buzzcut!”

Derek rolls his eyes again. “Grab hold of the top, and I’ll take the trunk end,” he says, knowing that it would be a lot faster if he carried it by himself, but strangely, wanting to prolong the walk back.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Stiles mutters, but does as he’s told anysways. “Hey, did you know that the first decorated Christmas was in Riga, Latvia in 1510? And that recycled trees have been used to make sand and soil erosion barriers and been placed in ponds for fish shelter? And…”

Derek lets the boy’s voice wash over him, weirdly charmed by the kid’s infodump. He answers back occasionally, mostly facts about how tree farming works – what little Derek knows; he’s only been doing the job for a month – then more frequently when the subject turns to movies and comic books, and they argue good-naturedly all the way back to the shack. There they are greeted by the sight of several Sheriff’s cars and even a police dog. Stiles mutters, “Oh my god, Dad, way to overreact,” and then his dad catches sight of them and runs over to them, grabbing him up and hugging and scolding him.

Derek takes the tree to the shake-n-baler, and readies the tree for them to take home. He’s just finishing it when they come over to him, Stiles’ hand clenched firmly in his father’s. The dad sticks out his other hand, and Derek takes it to shake. “I don’t know how to thank you, son,” he says. “That was incredible. How did you find him so quickly?”

_Oh, crap_. Derek ducks his head. “Oh, you know. You pointed me in the right direction, and I just tried to think like a ten-year-old, you know?”

The man shook his head, “Not in the slightest. But you found him, and that’s what counts. What’s your name?”

“Derek. Derek Hale.”

“Well, Derek Hale, if you ever find yourself in trouble, you call me. I’m John Stilinski, and I’m a deputy with the Beacon County Sheriff’s department.” He fishes a business card out of his breast pocket, and hands it to Derek, who takes it a little nervously, like everyone who ever meets a cop does.

“Thank you, sir. I hope I never need to, but thanks.” He puts the card in his back pocket. “Um, if you want, Stiles and I can tie the tree to your car while you pay for it.”

Stiles jumps up and down where he’s still holding hands with his father. “Dad! Dad! That’s a good idea. Gimme the keys! Gimme the keys!”

Deputy Stilinski rolls his eyes. “Yes, your majesty,” but he pulls out the keys and hands them over anyways. He claps Derek on the shoulder as he turns to go pay for the tree, and Stiles grabs Derek’s sleeve and drags him toward the parking lot.

“It’s this way,” he says, and takes them unerringly to a battered blue Jeep, and unlocks it. Derek stands in the open rear door of the Jeep and hauls the tree up one-handed. “Holy crap, you’re strong!” Stiles blurts, and Derek feels abnormally proud of himself at the boy’s praise.

“It’s mostly in the technique,” he lies, using the ropes the boy hands him to tie the tree in place.

“ _Technique_ ,” Stiles mocks, but his father walks up before he can say anything else.

The man grabs the trunk and shakes it. “Wow, son, you did a great job. That tree’s not going anywhere.”

Derek blushes. “Thank you, sir, it’s my job.”

“Well, you’re darn good at it.” He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a folded bill. “This is for you,” and he hands it to Derek.

“Thank you, sir,” he says again, glancing down at the money before putting it in his pocket, “Merr-” His eyes bug out. “Uh, sir, I think you made a mistake. This is a fifty.” He tries to hand the money back, but the deputy closes Derek’s fingers over the bill.

“It’s no mistake, son,” he says softly. “That was all I had in my wallet, but if I’d had all the gold in Fort Knox, I’d’ve given it to you for finding my son and bringing him back to me.”

Derek blushes again and is prevented from having to think of something to say by Stiles’ quiet but mulish, “I wasn’t even lost.”

His father rolls his eyes, and grabs his son by the top of his head and turns him to the passenger side of the Jeep. “Get in the car, you; we’ll talk when we get home.”

Derek is pretty sure only he hears Stiles’ quiet mimic, “We’ll talk when we get home, wah wah wah.”

“Thank you, sir,” he says again, and the man puts out his hand to shake again. When Derek takes it, the man pulls him into a bro hug, and pats him on the back.

“I’m in your debt, son,” he murmurs, then releases him. “You’re a good kid, Derek.”

Derek just shrugs, and looks at the ground. His ears feel like they’re on fire. The man pats his shoulder as he passes him to get in the drivers’ side. Derek walks between the passenger side and the next car over. When he gets to the front door, Stiles has cranked down the window, Santa hat pulled down low over his ears. He looks like an elf, and Derek has to look away and press his lips together hard to suppress his grin at how cute the kid looks. “Hey, are you off work now? Do you need a ride home?”

Derek looks up at him, and steps closer to get one last whiff of him. “Yeah, I’m off now. I just have to clock out. I usually just walk home through the woods, though. I’ll be okay.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. It’s cold and dark in the woods, and it’s warm and light in our car. Plus you’ll get to hang out with me longer!”

Derek hesitates, thinking about how good it would smell in the car with Stiles and the windows up and the heat on. The deputy chimes in with his invitation. “I really would feel more comfortable if you’d let us take you home, son.” And Derek can sense no lie in his words.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go punch out and be right back.” He jogs over to the shack, accepts congratulations and thanks from his boss on finding Stiles, and clocks out. He’s back to the Jeep in five minutes, and gets in behind Stiles. The car is warmed up, and the Stilinskis’ scents are as strong as he imagined. He lets his nose concentrate on the boy’s scent as he buckles in, saying, “Thanks for this, driving me home. I appreciate it.”

The deputy shakes his head, “Son, this is the very _least_ I can do to thank you.”

“Wasn’t lost,” Stiles breathes.

His father pokes him. “When we get home, kiddo.” Derek imagines Stiles is rolling his eyes.

The drive to Derek’s house is uneventful, and even though Stiles and his dad carry most of the conversation, Derek chimes in every once in awhile. “I can’t believe you were going to walk all this way!” Stiles says when they finally get to the Hale house. “It’s gotta be like five miles!”

“It’s shorter through the woods,” Derek lies, as he gets out of the car. Unfortunately, the sound of an unfamiliar vehicle has brought out his parents and Uncle Peter, and then the whole story has to be gone over again, and by the time they finish, Mom has invited the Stilinskis to stay for dinner (which everyone is on their best behavior for, and no one does anything wolfy, not even the littles), and they stay awhile after, too, and it’s after 9 p.m. before the Hales – reluctantly – let the Stilinskis go home.

There’s more interrogation from his mom before Derek is allowed to go up to his room, but she isn’t mad about him using his wolf abilities to find Stiles, so it’s not too bad.

*

It’s only the next day at school in English class with Ms Argent – Kate – that he realizes he completely stood her up last night.

Strangely, he feels only the littlest bit guilty – and not at all like he wants to make it up to her. He dodges her after class, and for the rest of the day, and when she finally corners him – and it really feels like he’s cornered – he tells her he doesn’t want to see her outside of class again.

She gets furious, and grabs him, threatening him, and he is so freaked out he breaks away from her and runs all the way home, and doesn’t resist his mom’s questioning when he gets home all upset.

His mom calls Deputy Stilinski, and Derek gives in to his and his mom’s gentle but firm interrogation, and the whole story of Kate’s seduction comes out. It takes the rest of the year, but when he comes back to school after Christmas break, Kate is gone.

*

A month later, there’s a news story about how she died in a car wreck, on the other side of the preserve from the Hale house, and how her car was full of jugs of weird chemicals, and bags of what the authorities were calling sawdust. No one in Beacon Hills mourns her.

*

The deputy – who is elected Sheriff the next year – gratefully accepts Talia’s offer to babysit his son at the Hale house while he works. Stile objects loudly to the term “babysit,” but happily goes there anyways.

*

By the time Derek graduates from high school three and a half years later, he has figured out _exactly_ what Stiles’ scent means to him, and decides to stay at home and go to BHCC instead of university.

*

Six years after _that_ , while Stiles is home on summer break between his Sophomore and Junior years at Stanford, the Hales sit Stiles and his father down and tell them the werewolf secret. Turns out, Stiles had figured it out when he was twelve, and told his father not long after. There’s laughter all around.

*

In August, Derek and Stiles get married.

*

And after _that_ , well, there’s just happily ever after.

 

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
